With the GTS450 ready to launch on Monday, AMD’s price boffins have pulled out the graph paper and slide rules (we’re thinking of you Matt) to determine what needs to be done in order to maintain its share of the DX11 pie. KitGuru gets splattered as the new prices get glued to the shop walls.

While there is some cache to having the cheapest DX11 card in the market, KitGuru prefers to look at the first card to offer sensible performance at 1920×1080. For a long time, with only AMD mid-range cards in the market, there was only one choice. The Radeon HD 5770.

Now nVidia is pumping hard on the product launches, while at the same time milking every saving possible from the cost of the new cards.

Result? Well, we can’t actually speak about unannounced product performance just yet – but the GTS450 has already had an effect on the market.

In preparation for the GTS450 launch on Monday, AMD seems to have already pushed partners to pound down prices on the Radeon 5770.

Helping to prepare the GTS450 welcoming committee, sites like Scan are now offering a 1GB XFX 5770 at 850MHz core clock for just £90.57 + vat (about £106).

The faster clocked XFX 5770 model pumps along at 875Mhz and is just £99.57 + vat (about £116).

GTS 450 Welcoming Committee

KitGuru says: If the GTS450 kicks the 5770’s butt, even by 10%, then we might see a lot more of this price movement over the next week or so. nVidia has traditionally been an aggressive marketing operation, but it seems that early Fermi performance took some of the wind out of its sails/sales and it needed to regroup. The GTX460 was the first step on that path, maybe GTS450 will be a second step. AMD has hardly touched its pricing in a year, so this will be a move of significant interest if it does decide to engage. Game on!